The United States could alleviate growing stockpiles of nuclear waste at U.S. power plants by allowing private companies to dispose of it and foster support for new nuclear projects, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said on Tuesday. The U.S. government spent billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada that was supposed to store nuclear waste permanently underground, but politicians from the state, including top Senate Democrat Harry Reid, opposed the project, leading to its cancellation in 2010. The waste is now mostly held at power plants in dry cask storage or in spent fuel pools, said Moniz, a nuclear physicist who has run the department since 2013. The United States could start transferring that waste to interim sites, potentially including government and private disposal sites, in the middle of the next decade until a permanent solution is developed.
Reuters 20th Sept 2016 read more »
The clean-up after the February 2014 explosion at the world’s only deep underground repository for nuclear waste in New Mexico, USA, is massively over budget, writes Jim Green – and full operations won’t resume until at least 2021. The fundamental cause of the problems: high level radioactive waste, poor regulation, rigid deadlines and corporate profit make a dangerous mix. An analysis by theLos Angeles Timesfinds that costs associated with the February 2014 explosion at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could total US$2 billion.
Ecologist 20th Sept 2016 read more »